Dark Side of the Soul
by lost on planet you
Summary: Being Dr. Harleen Quinzel hadn't been easy — but no one ever said being Harley Quinn was any easier. Turning in her stethoscope for a baseball bat was just the first step in a series of many to curing Arkham Asylum's most infamous patient of his black heart.


**Summary: Being Dr. Harleen Quinzel hadn't been easy — but no one ever said being Harley Quinn was any easier. Turning in her stethoscope for a baseball bat was just the first step in a series of many to curing Arkham Asylum's most infamous patient of his black heart.**

 **Disclaimer: I have no affiliation to DC Comics. I did not produce Suicide Squad.**

* * *

For once, it isn't raining — and that's when Harleen knows it's a dream.

She's on the roof of a building. Everything's blurry, but her dreams have never been crystal clear to begin with; she can see the unmistakable fuzzy spots of light in the distance, and she knows what they are before she can think about it. Gotham City looms across the lake. She knows where she is: on top of Arkham Asylum.

There is no guardrail to keep her bare toes from hanging off the ledge. Perhaps this is because there's no actual way to reach the roof of the asylum — in reality, at least. But this is a dream, and a frightening one at that. Not because of the height, though.

 _Harleeeeen…_

There's no one there. In her dream, she knows this already, yet there's a voice swirling around her, riding the wind as it whips her long, pale hair about; it calls to her from every direction. It makes her toes curl around the edge, her fingers twist into her palm.

 _Harleeeeen..._

She doesn't know this voice that comes from the darkness pressing down on her. She can't put a face to it, and she doesn't know if she wants to. The wind picks up speed; her white dress is pushed and pulled along her body. One strong gust and she might topple over to her death, but before that can happen, the voice grows louder.

 _HarlEEEEEN…_

She looks down, where she knows the voice is coming from now. She can see nothing but black. There is no ground, no stone steps or gravel driveway like there normally is. There is an empty abyss waiting patiently for her, and in it is the source of the voice. Her eyes search and search for it. She knows it's down there. With each passing second, her body grows more tense, preparing for the jump. Something flashes; she thinks she's seen it. The voice is cooing to her now, begging, pleading, coaxing her down with just the sound of her name.

She can't control it. Her arms extend, her head falls back, just as the voice reaches the height of its volume.

" _HARLEEN_!"

Her eyes open just as she tips over the edge, but she's not falling through the air, plunging to her death. Flannel sheets are tangled around her body, her favorite pillow is tucked under her head, and, barely visible in the dark, her roommate is standing over her, almond-shaped eyes blinking curiously.

"Lila," she croaks, sitting up quickly, though a wave of vertigo nearly knocks her back onto the mattress. "What's wrong?"

"You were having a bad dream. I heard you from my room." The tiny girl steps back as Harleen flips on her lamp; both girls squint in the new light.

Her heart is still pounding against her chest. "I'm sorry," Harleen murmurs. "I didn't mean to wake you. I've never talked in my sleep before."

"You weren't talking," Lila says while she scratches absently at her elbow. She looks like she's drowning in her oversized, pink silk pajamas. "I think you were crying. I came to check on you and saw you were moving all over the place and making this whimpering noise."

There's a pause and Harleen knows Lila's waiting for her to explain her dream, but something holds her back; she looks away, swallowing through a dry mouth. Lila sighs.

"Well, if you're okay..." She turns for the door.

"Thanks for checking on me," Harleen calls softly after her. "Sorry for waking you."

She listens to her roommate's footsteps fade away, taking deep breaths to slow her heart. Harleen has never been much of a dreamer, but this one seemed so real. Her body still tingles from the feeling of being on the edge of the roof. She feels childish for letting it get the best of her, but she knows she won't be going back to sleep. On her nightstand, the analog clock reads **4:52**.

Looks like _carpe diem_ ing would be early this morning.

She pushes back her covers and jumps out of bed, in search of a hot shower followed by a hot cup of strong coffee to help.

By seven-thirty, Harleen's in her closet-sized office at Arkham with a steaming mug of oolong tea cupped between her hands; winter has arrived early to Gotham City, and the asylum is infamous for its drafty walls. Her overcoat hangs around her shoulders, her doctor's coat left tossed over her chair where she left it from yesterday; some days, she doesn't even bother putting it on.

While she sorts through files, she taps her heels against the floor to keep the feeling in her toes. There's a pitiful fire flickering in the office's fireplace, but the heat is weak, and she doubts it'd even be able to melt a snowflake. Her ears ring from the chilly room, and the brain cell-murdering work.

 _Arkham Asylum_ , she thinks. _Where the work turns the doctors into patients._

Harleen always thought being a psychiatrist would be exciting, adventrous, stimulating. She always thought she'd unravel brains as rare as sightings of Batman. She always thought she'd make a difference.

Instead, Arkham's stuffed her into a back room to organize files dating back all the way to the eighties.

To put it lightly, Harleen has felt a lack of motivation for her profession within the past three months; she's only been at Arkham for six, not counting the month she took off when her father died, but she expects to have had a patient by now. She's not an intern. She works six days a week and receives a paycheck — however small it may be — every month. She's capable of more than archiving old cases. Harleen Quinzel did not graduate at the top of her class to do secretary work.

Has she told her supervisor this?

Well…no. Not yet. But she's going to. This week. She has to, or else she'll clock in for good at this place.

Harleen's done with her tea and categorizing one of her last files from '87 when her phone rings. The sound makes her jump, empty mug crashing to the ground, and for a second she stares at it. Her brain is off; she's never had a phone call before. The phone gives another shrill ring and instincts kick in. She picks up.

"Hello? — I mean, Dr. Quinzel here."

"Harleen." She flinches. The voice on the other end belongs to an agitated Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, the director and Head Warden of the asylum. A call from him never means good news, especially since he seems to be perpetually broody. "I need you to meet me in front of room **36**. There's been an accident."

Those weren't exactly the words she had been expecting. "A-an accident?" she sputters.

"Yes, an accident! One of the doctors has been attacked by a patient — _don't tell anyone._ If someone asks where you're going or what you're doing, tell them you're on your way to see me. This has to stay between the least amount of people possible." Harleen realizes what she thought was agitation in his voice is really anxiety — and fear. The rusty doctor gears in her head begin turning, Dr. Arkham's voice the oil to get them running again. She shrugs off her overcoat, adrenaline coursing through her veins just from being _needed_ for something.

"Of course," she replies, "I'm on my way."

She hangs up and snatches her doctor's coat out of the chair, pulling it on over her skirt and blouse combination as she leaves the room in a flurry of loose papers. She tears across the old mansion with a purposeful stride. Some wicked part buried deep within her smiles in satisfaction for having a purpose.

Arkham's pacing in front of the door to therapy room **36** when she approaches. He stops when he hears her heels clicking. Dr. Jeremiah Arkham is tall, thin, with a thick brown beard that makes up for his bald spot; he's tugging on the side of his mustache when he turns to her, eyes wide with images he can't unsee, Harleen slows down, looking down the hall for any signs of the injured doctor, but it's just the two of them.

"Dr. Arkham," she says. "What's going on?"

He sighs and places his hands on his hips. Harleen, adept at reading body language, takes it as a sign of last resort. Her guard is up instantly.

"Dr. Rachel Lehland was attacked by her patient this morning, before business hours. She had come in early to see him before he went on these new drugs — he'd been acting jumpy, lately, like his screw was looser than normal—" Harleen notices the doctor's use of unprofessional words. "—and she didn't bother telling anyone because there hadn't been a threat before! Goddamnit. Of course there was a threat — there's always a fucking threat with this guy."

Her blood runs cold, but her mind is slow to catch up with her body. Perhaps her doctor's gears are still warming up…"The patient?" she squeaks, then clears her throat. "The patient. Who…?"

But Dr. Arkham is still going, back to his pacing and mustache-tugging.

"It's protocol to always have an orderly waiting for you! She's been here, what? Eighteen years? At the _least_? And she can't remember to follow protocol!? God. Goddamnit. It's like he knew she was that vulnerable. But it doesn't take a genius to realize a hiccup in tradition. Goddamnit."

Suddenly, he stops moving and looks sideways at Harleen. He sniffs, wipes his nose on his sleeve. Harleen knows she'll never forget the sight of her boss unraveled like this.

"He used the clipboard. _Her_ clipboard. I don't know how she didn't see it but she says he came out of nowhere with it, almost like…like magic. It made a direct hit to her eye. She was blinded. A calculated move, because now she didn't know where he was…She was lucky the janitor heard. He had her pants around her ankles when he found them. And now I'm hiring the guy as my number one orderly because he knocks him right out using his mop — his _fucking mop_."

Arkham lets out a humorless laugh.

Harleen's breaths are short; her heart rate picks up speed. This is a doctor's version of a horror story — her own patient turning on her. When she thought she was doing good, thought she was changing him, thought she was _curing_ him, she's double-crossed.

"Who is it?" she asks again. "Who's the patient?"

He gives her a long look. So long, she wonders if her voice had been strong enough for him to hear. But he wipes at his brow and puts his hands on his hips again.

"It's the Joker. He's here, at Arkham. And he just put my second-in-command in the hospital."

There's a soft roar. She realizes her heart's gone into full-throttle; childhood terror blends with her masochistic curiosity. She can't believe he's here. Last she heard, he was dead. "He's...here?"

"He was dropped off in the middle of the night about a month ago," Arkham answers. "Maybe six weeks. The bat guy's obviously who brought him 'cause I doubt he turned himselfin. Lehland's been his doctor ever since. They've done sessions twice a week every week since he got here. He was a model patient, up until now…"

"Why didn't I — I mean, why didn't we know about this? I haven't heard anything about him here—"

"Good," he cuts her off. "Good. I didn't want any press in case something like this happened! And I don't trust my doctors enough to let them know the monster's rotting away in a cell down below us; most of them are power-hungry and itching to get out of here, and what better way to do it then to get up close and personal with Gotham City's most ruthless villain and write a book about it, or let a few things slip to the right people?" He shakes his head in disgust.

This makes Harleen pause. She's a doctor. She may not do what the others do, but she's still a doctor.

"Why do you trust _me_ , then?" she asks stiffly. She watches as Arkham deflates and looks at her sadly; he had been expecting this from her, which makes her all the more angry. "Who's to say I won't bring this to the _Daily Planet_ and have it in black and white on the front of tonight's evening paper?"

"Because," Arkham says, "you won't."

"Covering up an accident at work? That seems pretty newsworthy to me, Doctor—"

"You won't because I need you to finish Lehland's job. Doesn't that sound a lot better than losing your own?"

Harleen's mouth is open; she can feel it hanging there without an agenda. She looks stupid, and she knows she's just been embarrassingly put in place, but her brain is still functioning a bit slow today. Everything's harder to process.

A patient. A real patient. Waiting for her. At the thought of it, her hands are itching to take notes, her ears twitching to listen to someone's memoir. It's been much too long since she felt like a real doctor. And here he is — the patient of all patients, hers for the taking. She wipes at the corner of her mouth, afraid of drool.

"I can see it all over your face, Harleen." Arkham sounds tired, now. "You want him. This is your opportunity to get out of that office and prove yourself; trust me, I know how it works. If you do this, and you do it right, I'll give you cases. Patients. Everything. I promise. I just really need you for this."

She stares at him for a long time, weighing his words on the lie meter. Finally, she whispers, "What do you want me to do?"

Relief crosses her boss's face, but it's not much.

"We need to make this guy think hurting a doctor doesn't make him any different. No change in treatment, at least until Dr. Lehland decides what to do. Now, I know what you're thinking—"

"Yeah," Harleen bursts out, "I'm thinking he'll try attacking me, too!"

"No. Not this time. There was always an orderly in the room with them. This won't be any different. Plus, we'll have two extras just outside the door. We just really need to keep up with the pretenses."

"The act's what makes him," she suddenly murmurs. Arkham pauses to stare at her before nodding.

"Yes," he says slowly, impressed. "He thrives off reactions. It's why he is who he is. Jokers were always meant to draw and hold the attention of everyone in the room. We've done a pretty good job at making him feel not so important anymore, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Okay. So, what am I supposed to say?"

Arkham flinches, and she realizes that wasn't her brightest comment; she's a trained psychiatrist — she's _supposed_ to know what to say. But to her surprise, Arkham pulls a slip of paper from his pocket.

"You'll need to improvise the first half, but then you should get into these. Dr. Lehland left them for you. They pick up where they left off. But don't say anything about his attack on her. Remember, we have to make him seem insignificant. Human. Domesticated. Any special treatment and he'll only look to do it again."

She takes the list from him, but her eyes are unfocused and she can't read what it says. Her mind is whirling with the new information, the sudden change in her environment, her future.

"Okay. I'll do it."

He gives her a half smile. "It wasn't really a choice, but I appreciate your enthusiasm."

Then, with a swipe of his ID, the door to therapy room **36** opens up. It's empty, except for the classic table and chairs bolted to the floor. A single, rain-splattered window provides the weak light. Arkham extends his arm as a gesture for her to enter.

"Ready to meet the Joker?"

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 **A/N: GUYS. I LOGGED ONTO MY ACCOUNT AND ALL OF THE SUDDEN IT WAS GONE. MY LAST STORY. I DON'T KNOW HOW, I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT ALL OF THE SUDDEN SUCKER FOR PAIN ISN'T THERE ANYMORE. I'VE CRIED AT LEAST THREE TIMES SINCE IT HAPPENED AND I WROTE THIS NEW STORY WITH TEARS IN MY EYES. ugh. I won't take all my frustration out on you guys 'cause that isn't fair. but seriously. why did that happen to me? I got kind of freaked, though, and decided to delete the Sucker For Pain chapters I had saved and just start fresh with a different plot; of course, this new story will be similar to the old one, but I've got a whole new perspective to try out. mostly because I think Sucker For Pain was jinxed or something I mean come on, what the fuck, man. anyway. I hope you guys like this story as much, if not more, than my last one, and I apologize to those who wanted to see more of it. hope this is okay. summary is the same, though I switched the title and the whole story line.**


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